On Tuesday, Nancy Goldberg will get my vote for Culver City Unified School District School Board. On her website she said, “Believes that the students’ safety is first and foremost.”
http://www.goldbergforculverschools.org
Put another way in her mailed literature, “Protect our students, first and foremost.” This may seem like a simple statement. But, in my opinion, it is an important issue. Safety was why I requested the city to enforce the helmet rules at the Culver City Skate Park.
School safety was so important of an issue that back in 2008, I showed a video at a CCUSD School Board meeting. A Los Angeles City Councilwoman had spearheaded a “School Safety Valet” program in North Hollywood. It was, basically, a curbside drop-off program to prevent people from double- and triple- parking around schools. The program was intended to make it safer for children around schools and to protect the neighborhood. The program later was expanded to 29 schools in the area. The cost for each school was around $500. The police and Dept. of Transportation trained the volunteers.
I figured it would be a no-brainer for the CCUSD to implement a similar program at all schools. It would be a win-win for the community. During the CCUSD meeting, a representative from U.S. Rep. Diane Watson’s office even gave his sympathy to a School Board member whose son had been hit by a car near school.
Four of the five Board Members and one Student Board member spoke about the traffic issue. One Board member said she would like to see the City/Board of Education Liaison Committee reactivated. Another member apologized for not remembering who was on the City Liaison Committee, but felt that there was never much accomplished by the meetings.
At least the Board was paying attention, I thought. Do all the CCUSD schools have School Safety Valets after more than three years? No. Are cars illegally parked around schools today? Yes. Every day.
When I showed the video again last month, I got laughs from the Board when the video showed an ongoing problem around our schools. The video showed eight cars double-parked. They snickered when I showed a car tripl- parked.
Nancy Goldberg, who was seated in the audience near where I was standing at the podium, said this is important. After showing the School Safety Valet video, I got only one public reaction from the School Board:
“That looks very familiar. That actually looks like the El Marino Drop Zone”, was the off-the-cuff statement by one School Board member. Yes, El Marino, the school with a statewide ranking of 10 (scale 1-10) API 931 has a drop-off program. How about every school in the CCUSD getting a similar program? It costs LAUSD around $500 per school to start the program. Can we not afford that? Do we not have enough parent volunteers?
Who is my second vote? Well I have a second and even third choice, but I am not casting my second vote. Why? Because I think it is very important that Nancy Goldberg wins one of the seats.
Voting for a second person would just cancel out my vote for Goldberg.
One of my other possible choices had an opportunity to establish a School Safety Valet program at all schools. As an active CCUSD School Board member working with the other members, he could have taken a leadership role. My other possible choice had an opportunity to establish a School Safety Valet program in her leadership role as the President, Culver City Council of PTAs. Neither chose to start a program.
People have gone as far saying the both of them “stand above the rest of the candidate field.” That is because they currently have kids in our schools they are some how more qualified.
They had their chance at school safety. Nancy Goldberg, I believe, will “protect our students, first and foremost.” What issue is more important than safety? In the Westwood area of Los Angeles, a school started a School Safety Valet program after a 9-year-old boy was hit and killed by a car.
Besides planting a tree on campus in his memory, they actually took action by starting a School Safety Valet program so that another child would not be killed.
The fourth grader who died in 1991 would be almost 30 years old today. Think about it. Does it take a tragedy to wake people up? It is my belief that Nancy Goldberg is a person of action and would work to get a program in our schools and not just talk about it.
Mr. Anderson may be contacted at cary@culvercity.TV
